FRIDAY.--I saw him again, for a moment, last Monday at nightfall,
but only for a moment. I was hoping he would praise me for trying
to improve the estate, for I had meant well and had worked hard.
But he was not pleased, and turned away and left me. He was also
displeased on another account: I tried once more to persuade him
to stop going over the Falls. That was because the fire had revealed
to me a new passion--quite new, and distinctly different from love,
grief, and those others which I had already discovered--FEAR. And it
is horrible!--I wish I had never discovered it; it gives me dark moments,
it spoils my happiness, it makes me shiver and tremble and shudder.
But I could not persuade him, for he has not discovered fear yet,
and so he could not understand me.
Extract from Adam's Diary
Perhaps I ought to remember that she is very young, a mere girl and
make allowances. She is all interest, eagerness, vivacity, the world
is to her a charm, a wonder, a mystery, a joy; she can't speak for
delight when she finds a new flower, she must pet it and caress it
and smell it and talk to it, and pour out endearing names upon it.
And she is color-mad: brown rocks, yellow sand, gray moss, green foliage,
blue sky; the pearl of the dawn, the purple shadows on the mountains,
the golden islands floating in crimson seas at sunset, the pallid moon
sailing through the shredded cloud-rack, the star-jewels glittering
in the wastes of space--none of them is of any practical value,
so far as I can see, but because they have color and majesty,
that is enough for her, and she loses her mind over them.
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